Apple’s Red iPhone 7 comes with some complaints

Apple launched it’s yet another product a Red iPhone 7. Many of Apple fans have rejoiced the color choice and has created a buzz among fans during the period of lull.

Apple iPhone 7 Red

While this is part of Apple’s long running product Red line (for fighting AIDS in African countries), the product designers choice of using white bezels for front of the device similar to white/pink iPhone has attracted criticism.
Apart from not blending with the device in terms of colors, white bezels are also an distraction for most users.
Several comments and complaints have cropped up in various forums and users have started posting various ways to overcome the irritating design choice.

Apple Iphone vs Android Devices – How does the future hold for the Mobile Operating Systems?

This article focuses on Operating Systems of Apple and Google, and how Hardware plays a huge role in success of each.

I was happily using my iPhone 6 plus till one day I couldn’t answer the call despite multiple attempts of swiping. And after the few tries the call disconnected and this repeated few times that week.

And then I started noticing with opening some Apps and eventually phone became sluggish and touch screen stopped working, few resets/reloads later the phone was sent for a replacement and had a newer phone with me. Meanwhile few searches in the Apple forum and found several users of 6 Plus with similar issues.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7028290

Apple announced 6S in couple of weeks and I installed the Shiny new OS, to my horror the was slowed down considerably. My less than 1 year old phone was barely use-able.  I knew the 6 plus was slightly slower than iPhone 6 the I changed from 6 to  6 Plus, but didn’t expect the phone to  become uncomfortable to use this early.

Meanwhile my wife’s Note 3 was feeling lightening fast in Opening apps in comparison to iPhone 6 plus. Shouldn’t it be other way around? Mind you she has 25 Gig of pictures in her 64 GB card.

Apple A9 SoC up close
If you look at iphone 6 Plus hardware, it was same (except for Camera) as iphone 6 but rendering at a larger screen and higher ppi. And despite Apple using a 64 bit SoC iphone 6 plus has just 1GB of RAM. Note 3  which is nearly a year older than Iphone 6 plus and has 32 bit SoC has 3 GB (near maximum for 32 bit architectures). Part of the problem is under powered hardware.

But the main failing is the software in IOS, with the last few releases Apple has become consistent in producing buggy software be it Cellular issues, Security issues or simply unusable devices.

With multiple iterations and enhancements their software is showing the wear, this is a typical enhancement life cycle problem. Everyone expect Apple to produce polished devices but Apple under Tim Cook has been struggling with the Polish aspect.

Android on the other hand has power of numbers in manufacturers, if a revision of Samsung Galaxy goes bad, you have Nexus devices (LG/Huawei this time) or LG or Motorola lineup. But Apple is looking precarious with a single Hardware point of failure, if one of the Apple phone fails it could be devastating for iOS.

Looking at Samsung Exynos 7420 which came up as a clear winner against A9 chip and that too with a wide margin in Multi Core performance, you might wonder if Apple could keep itself ahead of all these manufacturers in its own hardware.

For a end user it doesnt matter if Apple IOS is better, if the performance of a device is bad

 

Samsung Exynos 7420

 

By locking its OS to one hardware,  Apple lost the Desktop game to Microsoft  and it stopped development of its Custom CPU’s and finallyembraced Intel in 2005.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Intel_processors

By the looks of it, this might happen very soon in Mobile Market, but here atleast A9 SoC are based on similar ARM designs other Android manufacturers are using.

With lacklustre performance of Apple Watch and iPad Pro hitting the market in a already Microsoft Surface dominated Market, Apple seems to be behind in its game by a long way.

Just one bad Iphone Iteration could spell doom for Apple’s iOS kingdom.

 

Blackberry (RIM) facing a Grim future with BES

Blackberry Manufacturer , Research In Motion is facing a tough challenge in the Mobile Device space, with competition from Apple and whole bunch of new Device vendors powered by Android.  And its device fortunes are tightly coupled with Enterprises continuing to use BES for Mobile email.

Though RIM has brought out quite a few new devices in the recent past like the Blackberry Torch, still its Device space is pale in comparison to Apple or Android Ecosystem. Though RIM allowed BES client softwares for other Mobile devices in the past, it ceased this practice in hope of growing its Handset business. But this could backfire in the current scenario.

Most of the big enterprises use Microsoft’s Exchange server or IBM Domino, and there are others  who use simple POP/SMTP, or IMAP service through vendors like Google. And Blackberry devices provide a way of accessing the mails through its BES – Blackberry Enterprise Service and BIS – Blackberry Internet Service. BES is a costly affair , the data plan costing 3 times than an regular basic data plan. For instance ATT charges $15 Minimum data plan for iPhone and other smartphones, whereas a blackberry with BES needs a Minimum data plan of $40.

Cost being one factor, But the device adaptation is another.  With so much fanfare and push for devices running iOS and Android, many enterprises are thinking of allowing the device access through less costlier services like Exchange ActiveSync (from Microsoft), which needs a basic data plan. My employer recently , silently rolled out Active Sync  access to enable  Iphones and iPad’s in particular, a decision pitched by Some Senior Managers who wanted to use iPhones.

With feature set of Microsoft Active Sync increasing rapidly with Active Sync 12 (currently 14), and licensing with Apple and Many Android device Manufacturers,  RIM is facing a bleak future.  If RIM doesnt move fast and introduce new compelling features or reinvent its Device segment  it is going to be very tough  ride.